SEPANG: Championship leader Marc Marquez is careful not to get carried away despite topping both practice sessions on the opening day of the Petronas Grand Prix of Malaysia on Friday.
Marquez, who has had mixed results at Sepang over the years, said he took more risks and it showed in his lap times.
The Ducati Lenovo rider clocked one minute and 58.912 seconds to top free practice one (FP1) and 1:57.00s in the afternoon session.
“Some years I feel good here from the beginning and some years I struggle from the start,” said Marquez.
“Today, from the out lap, the feeling was good with the medium rear tyre. In the afternoon, besides the small crash – when I was taking more risks – the rest was perfect.”
Marquez said he is not thinking about Jorge Martin’s (Aprilia Racing) situation. Martin, who is riding at Sepang with a fractured wrist, was well off the pace in FP1 and cut his session short in the afternoon.
Martin is second overall in the MotoGP standings, 10 points adrift of Marquez.
“I am in a position where the championship is in my hands. So I will try win as close as possible to 37 points here,” said Marquez.
“We also see that the Ducati (bikes) are working well here with Alex Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing) and Fabio Di Gianantonio (Pertamina Enduro VR46) so we will see how it goes.
“As we have seen at many race tracks this year, it can go well on Friday but then the situation changes during the weekend. So we need to be calm.”
Alex was second fastest in the afternoon practice, just 0.109s adrift of his elder brother.
Action resumes with FP2 Saturday morning.